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Louise Gold
Louise Gold (1956, England) is an English singer, actress, and puppeteer whose career has spanned more than four decades. She is best known for her work as a puppeteer on television and for roles in musical theatre in the West End. Gold was raised in London, beginning training in the arts at an early age. She began to appear in musical theatre in the mid-1970s. She was a puppeteer and voice actress for The Muppet Show, for four seasons from 1977, and later for Sesame Street, and she has performed voice and puppet work on various other Muppet films, albums, and television specials. She was a founder and lead puppeteer for the satirical television show Spitting Image from 1984 to 1986 and occasionally thereafter. She has had other television, film and voice roles since then. Gold is also known as an actress in musical theatre, having starred in numerous shows in the West End, beginning with Joe Papp's London production of The Pirates of Penzance in 1982. She has played such roles as Mrs. Johnstone in Blood Brothers, Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes, Kate in Kiss Me, Kate, Tanya in Mamma Mia!, Phyllis in Follies, Baroness Bomburst in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Miss Andrew in Mary Poppins, Mrs Sowerberry and Mrs Bedwin in Oliver!, and Mazeppa in Gypsy, among many others. She was a regular performer in the Lost Musicals concert productions in London in the 1990s, and she regularly performs in her own cabaret act. Gold made her professional debut in 1973, while still in her last year of school, in the Christmas pantomime Dick Whittington and his Cat, as Fairy Bowbells, at the Malvern Festival Theatre. She played in the musical Hair on tour in Britain in 1974. In 1975–76, she played Rachel in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the York Theatre Royal and then on tour (as Rachel and Potiphar's Wife). In 1977, Gold joined The Muppet Show, during the show's second season, where Jim Henson trained her as a puppeteer. She became the only British puppeteer regularly employed on the show. She played several characters during her four seasons with the show, the best-known of which was Annie Sue Pig. She also sang on several of The Muppets' albums and was often paired vocally with Jerry Nelson. She was a puppeteer in the films The Great Muppet Caper (1981) and The Dark Crystal (1982), and she appeared in various other Muppet series and specials. Muppet chronicler Christopher Finch wrote that Gold was "the most versatile female puppeteer to work on The Muppet Show and the only British member of the cast." During these years, she continued to appear in musicals and plays in between her commitments to The Muppets. Among her non-puppeteering television appearances, Gold was featured as Mrs Tyler, a Goodwife, in the first series episode "Witchsmeller Pursuivant" of Blackadder (1983). The same year, she appeared as Maureen Bedford in episode two of For 4 Tonight, a talk-show spoof. In 1991, she played the domineering Private Elsa Bigstern in two episodes of 'Allo! 'Allo! Category:Actors from England